Record Review Special

originally published September 5, 2001

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They're not just Vic Chesnutt's opening band, anymore.

Lambchop's recent offering, Nixon, proved to any skeptic that singer-songwriter Kurt "Is that his real name?" Wagner and company are an outfit to be reckoned with. And rightfully so. Nixon is a masterpiece of chamber country, a genre that music writers may well have created simply to accommodate this band. It's the musical equivalent of a long, thoughtful sigh. Somewhere between Vic Chesnutt, Belle & Sebastian, and Otis Redding, Nixon put Lambchop on the musical landscape. If the near-perfection of Nixon wasn't enough to convince you of the band's arrival, here's another testimony to its stature: Tools In The Dryer. Tools... is a collection of B-sides, alternate versions and live cuts culled from the band's 14-plus years with 20-plus members, and a stage-cramming 13 full-time players presently involved.

This is not an album for someone who's merely curious to hear what the band sounds like. Collections like these are generally put together with the completists in mind. (Hence the above assertion: someone out there thinks there are enough Lambchop completists out there to justify making this album.) Why else would compiler-bandmember Jonathan Marx elect to include songs like "Style Monkeys," a tinny garage-rock freak-out complete with distorted guitars and drum-machines, committed to cassette via boombox by Wagner and two of his old high school buddies back in 1987? Or the Doppelganger remix of "Give Me Your Love," a European dance track that only bears listening if you keep telling yourself that it was probably a good song before somebody from the KLF got his hands on it. Songs like these are fascinating (and there are a couple more - another vintage '87 tune called "All Over the World" and a DJ Shadow-esque trippy remix of "Up With People"), but thoroughly worthless to someone who's looking for more than some historical insight/hilarious tangential exploration into a band they already know they like.

Don't get me wrong, though: there are some beautiful songs on this record. Out of 16 tracks, only four or five are total freakshow oddities. Great songs include Lambchop's version of Chesnutt's "Miss Prissy," which was somehow rejected for the Sweet Relief benefit disc. This track explains why Vic subsequently enlisted them to accompany him on an entire album - Lambchop can take his songs and breathe two or three new dimensions into them. The alternate version of Nixon's "Petrified Florist" is even more menacing and dirgy than the album version - I'd buy the whole record just for this one. "Flowers Of Memory" is the earliest track featuring something that actually resembles the current line-up, and it shows a heavy but tasteful Velvet Underground influence.

Finally, "Love TKO," a cover song recorded live in 2000, shows just how far the band has come; the members are confident, powerful, and yet more relaxed-seeming than they were on earlier tracks, and Kurt actually yells.

If you already know you like Lambchop, the decision to buy this record was probably a foregone conclusion. If you're not sure, keep in mind: B-side compilations are jarring and spotty affairs, and this is no exception. Get ready to program your CD player so you can skip a few tracks. (P.O. Box 1235, Chapel Hill, NC 27514)